🌊 Ripple · counterfactual
What if Radio broadcasting had gone differently?
1906 · north-america
One transmitter can now reach every receiver in range at once.
If it had gone differently: Mass culture and mass politics keep moving at the speed of print; no living-room broadcast, ever.
What it made possible
Later turning points that leaned on Radio broadcasting. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.
- 1936Television broadcasting. Without it, Mass culture stays a matter of radio and print; the living-room screen that reshapes politics and leisure never arrives.
- 1991The World Wide Web. Without it, Networked computers stay the preserve of universities and corporations; there is no open web for anyone to publish to.
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